


The Only Color Missing Was Purple

by Asymptotical



Category: Horizon: Zero Dawn (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Daemons, Canon Divergence - Vala Lives, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-01
Updated: 2019-09-01
Packaged: 2020-10-04 11:55:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20470625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Asymptotical/pseuds/Asymptotical
Summary: Vala had been looking forward to seeing what shape Aloy's daemon would show up with at the Proving.





	The Only Color Missing Was Purple

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Serie11](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Serie11/gifts).

Vala had been looking forward to seeing what shape Aloy's daemon would show up with. 

Because Aloy would, of course, show up. It was going to be this year. Sure, sometimes daemons settled late and people had to do their Proving run the next year, but if Aloy was going to be off step with their year group she would have come _early_, not late. 

Bast had spent the weeks leading up to the Proving crowing about both how absolutely irrelevant 'The Outcast' was going to be if she showed up and how he wasn't at all curious what her daemon would be because it was sure to be a mouse or something. 

If it was a mouse, Vala would be willing to be it would be the most useful mouse daemon in the tribe. 

Which would be impressive because there were a _lot_ of very useful smaller daemons. Sometimes people like Bast forgot that they needed the daemons of the Nora for more than helping them in a fight. How were they going to keep the food stores clear of vermin or keep watch properly without daemons that were suited to those tasks? It was like belittling a tailor because they didn't run the Proving. If everyone fought they'd all be naked and starving. 

Essom jumped up on the rock to sit beside her, tail wagging slowly as he joined her in scanning the crowds heading to watch The Blessing. _'I think it'll be some sort of cat,'_ he said. 

"You only think that because it was a cat the one time we saw her as kids," she countered, shaking her head. "It could be anything." 

Essom was a canine. Huge and gray with thick fur made for the cold and when he put his head up and howled it could echo for miles, singing to the rest of their family. There hadn't been any fanfare about his settling. It had been a foregone conclusion that he'd be the same sort of creature as the rest of the daemons in her family. The one time a cousin had settled into a sparrow instead had been an event worth talking about. 

The sort of creature he was didn't exist, as far as she could tell. It seemed wrong. It felt like they belonged here. She knew in her bones that the only reason there weren't creatures like Essom running out in the wild was because of whatever the ancients had done. The closest she'd ever seen was a fox and that… it wasn't the same. 

Sometimes she dreamed of finding them. Of hearing howls and following the sound with Essom behind her echoing back and finding a whole pack of wild creatures that sang to her soul and feeling _right_. 

_'It was a strange sort of cat,'_ Essom argued. '_Why would it be that strange of a cat if it wasn't going to settle in something like that'._

"It's probably been a lot of strange things. I've never met someone Outcast as a child before, maybe they're all like that?" Vala was pretty sure that the whole Outcasting a baby thing would just lead to all sorts of problems, the daemon issue being one of the big ones. So Aloy didn't have a mother. That seemed impossible but… the only answer was that someone had somehow hidden a pregnancy and abandoned her. They should have worked on finding the mother and Outcast _her_, not the baby she threw away. If Aloy was actually somehow cursed or dangerous then why let her run in the Proving? 

It didn't make any sense to Vala, but she supposed the Matriarchs had some sort of reason the rest of them couldn't know. And Vala was hardly going to actually call them on it. 

At least the Proving would set everything to how it should be. 

_'You're thinking too hard.'_ Essom bumped his head against her arm. _'We're speculating about daemon shapes, not worrying.'_

"_You're_ speculating about daemon shapes. I'm just waiting to see." 

He huffed, leaning against her until his greater bulk nearly knocked her off balance. _'Speculating is more fun.'_

She leaned back on her hands, bracing harder with the one since her daemon seemed determined to be a pest. He was going to end up in her lap soon, she knew it. "If it is a strange cat that'll be bad. Those new machines that have been such a threat are feline." 

_'So?'_

"Someone will blame her, I bet." 

_'That is so incredibly stupid,'_ Essom complained. _'Should they blame our family if something shaped like us appears?'_

"I didn't say it was _smart_. I said they would. You know they would." 

_'They'll probably try to block her at the gates no matter what her daemon is,'_ he snapped, shifting back to support his own weight with a suddenness that nearly sent her sprawling towards him. 

Vala shifted up onto her heels, looking at him. For a few heartbeats brown eyes met yellow, then as one they jumped off the rock. 

"They won't start without _us_." 

_'No,'_ he agreed smugly. _'They won't.'_

She could see one of the Braves that was helping organize things frown at them as they made their way towards the bridge. Vala was fully ready to avoid him… or just tell him what she was up to and dare him to protest… 

But they didn't have to. 

Someone about to step onto the other side of the bridge glanced at a bit of a fuss behind him, and then suddenly moved out of the way. And there was Aloy. 

It was a bird. A big bright red bird with massive claws and a curved beak that looked capable of doing some real damage. His wings had big bands of bright yellow and blue with hints of green where the colors met. He was almost a rainbow of a creature. The only color missing was purple. Aloy had sewn him a little pouch that sat neatly on one of his legs, and Vala was suddenly filled with the urge to find some purple string or beads for Aloy to add to it so she could have a proper rainbow of a daemon. 

Which was silly because Vala had no idea if Aloy even _wanted_ or cared about something like that. 

Aloy gave her a polite smile as she passed, her daemon eyeing them before going back to surveilling the rest of the people around them. 

_'It _is_ strange, but no one can complain about a bird!'_ Essom said happily, tail wagging. 

"They probably can. People can complain about everything." Vala snorted, turning to head towards her spot in the Blessing. A lot of people were probably weighing the strangeness against wanting some of those feathers when they shed. 

He must have settled recently, for Aloy to not have any of them sewn into her clothes yet. That was surprising. 

_'Yes but if they try to say it's dangerous they'll just look silly. Matriarch Teersa has an owl and that Outcast we saw Aloy with has a great brown bird. They've all even got the same sort of curved beaks! Clearly she's just taking after the people closest to her with something colorful.'_

That… was actually a pretty good point. And probably the argument Vala would use when someone said something about it to her. 

* * *

Later, after the Proving, after metal shards had ripped through her leg and Essom was sporting scars that would never fully heal, she thought back to that conversation. 

Not because of Aloy. Aloy had done everything she could. Aloy had sent her daemon flying down the mountain to tell everyone what had happened because it could _talk_ and of course Aloy had managed to get a daemon that could _talk_ aloud like it was a human. Of course she could manage to send her daemon flying far from where she was… or maybe they'd just ignored the pain. Either option was impressive. 

Someone would probably kick up a fuss, since sending a daemon that far was supposed to be impossible, but if they did they'd have Vala to deal with. 

If Vala had the mindset for it, she would have wondered how many birds like that they'd be getting in the next crop of settled daemons. Aloy had walked out of Mother's Mountain with a scar on her throat and a seeker's seal on her belt and all of those kids who were having to take on duties before their daemons even settled were going to look to her. They _better_ look to her, or Vala would make sure they did. 

But Vala couldn't think about that right now, because all she could think of was seeing that Carja man come over the rise with a great hulking tawny cat slinking behind him, and wonder if the idea that someone could manipulate the machines into making something like their daemon really was as ridiculous as she'd thought. 

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't use the proper names for a lot of animals because they don't seem to exist in the wild in HZD, but just in case anything was confusing here are the ones that went unnamed in the text.
> 
> Vala: Grey Wolf  
Aloy: Macaw  
Rost: Golden Eagle  
Helis: Cougar


End file.
